Ghost Story

by Peter Straub

He was smiling, and if any of the people he greeted had asked him what he was thinking about, he might (if he allowed himself to be so pompous) have said: “Why, sidewalks. I’ve been thinking about sidewalks. One of my earliest memories is of the time they put in the sidewalks along the whole stretch of Candlemaker Street here, right down to the square. Hauling those big blocks up with horses. You know, sidewalks made a greater contribution to civilization than the piston engine. Spring and winter in the old days you had to wade through mud, and you couldn’t enter a drawing room without tracking some of it in. Summers, the dust was everywhere!” Of course, he reflected, drawing rooms had gone out just about the time the sidewalks had come in.